Thank you so much for the feedback on the first chapter. Hopefully three will come a little quicker. I think now that Yuuri and Victor are interacting, my writing will move at a brisker pace. This chapter is a little shorter than the first (though not by a lot), but it felt like the best place to cut it off. Reviews and comments are much appreciated. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. These boys fall FAST, don't they? Honestly I've rarely written a pairing that's just so... pleasant like they are.
Warm and Real and Bright
Chapter Two: For like the first time ever, I'm completely free!
Yuuri groaned. Or rather he tried to groan, but the sound was stifled by something around his mouth.
What the… He slid his eyes open, only to see darkness. And oh, his arms were bound too. And his feet. By- he spit a bit of whatever was binding him out, and it was very clear exactly what the material was, hair. He didn't need to be able to see to assume that it was probably silver hair, and it was that same hair that was binding his legs and his arms. He was standing up right in what felt like perhaps a wardrobe? In the small bit of light that did manage to peek in, the reflection of a mirror was apparent, and the soft fabric of a few pieces of what he imagined were the owner of said hair's garments.
Was it the man from the paintings? He frowned.
When was the last time Sakata no Kintoki had been captured? Oh, right, never. Yuuri didn't think too highly of himself, but he knew one thing; he was an expert at not being caught.
And now here he was, knocked unconscious by a frying pan, shoved in a person's closet, and tied up by their hair. He knew he could work his way out of this one, and it would be simple too, but the humiliation was undeniable. He groaned, or at least attempted to, again.
There was a loud press against the door, and Yuuri realized that there was weight against it. The tower's occupant must have been leaning on it. Well of course they were, he reasoned, if their hair was holding him in place. Essentially they were attached to him.
"Miss Lila, I've realized what I want outside of ballet shoes," a voice said, and from the distance of it, it was clearly the owner of the hair. A male voice, and Yuuri thought again of the paintings on the wall. It was a soft, friendly, and earnest sounding voice; warm even, but- well he had tied him up and hit him in the head with a frying pan.
"What is it Victor?" another voice asked. This one was that of a woman, a bit curt, but not cold.
The man, Victor, as Yuuri now knew, pressed his body further against the wardrobe. "My pink oil paint is almost out, so I need some buckthorn berries," he paused, "oh but they have to be unripe, or the pigmenting won't work. And make sure to get as many as you can, because I can also use them to make the most beautiful green…"
There was a pause in the conversation before the woman called Lila sighed. "We're too far above sea level for buckthorn berries to grow here, so that's at least a few days' trip, but… it is for your birthday."
A loud bang against the door caused Yuuri to startle, as Victor did what he assumed was some kind of physical expression of excitement. "Thank you Miss Lila."
"I'd better be heading out then. It's best to leave with plenty of day left."
"Yes. Safe travels. And I appreciate the shoes. They're amazing as always."
"Goodbye Victor."
A hug? Maybe. This woman was clearly some kind of guardian figure, so Yuuri assumed that's what the gesture that put extra weight against the wardrobe was. "Goodbye, Miss Lila."
Lila was barely out of the room when Yuuri pushed his rear against the back of the wardrobe and used the force of it to propel himself forward, kicking the wardrobe doors open with his bound feet and knocking Victor, who had yet to move, rather roughly onto the ground.
Victor let out a loud oomph as he fell, slipping on his own hair and wincing as the man he'd shoved into his wardrobe, landed rather soundly on the floor beside him.
"I didn't know what else to do!" Victor explained. "I couldn't let Miss Lila see you, and I couldn't have you waking up and letting her know you were here, so I just put you in there and tied you up and…"
Yuuri nodded. Victor blinked. He nodded again, very forcefully, and Victor finally got the point.
"Oh! Oh…"
He reached forward and pulled his hair away from Yuuri's mouth, releasing the gag that had kept him silent. "What is going on?!" was all Yuuri managed.
Yuuri took a moment to observe the appearance of his captor. He looked to be about his own age, taller than himself, and undeniably, really, really handsome. In addition to his hair, which was, at Yuuri's estimate, although he couldn't see it at all, at least sixty feet long (it fell into his face, and it wasn't just silver white; it almost looked like it glowed), his other features were striking as well. His eyes were an ocean blue, his complexion pale, and his face was very pretty.
He wore a pale pink doublet, laced up with purple cord, and his undershirt was lavender, the loose, almost sheer sleeves ending between his wrists and elbows and tied off with flower decorated ribbon. His breeches were a rosy brown, and on his feet were a pair of cream colored ballet shoes, perhaps the ones that 'Miss Lila' had just given him.
"I apologize, your highness, if I've committed any transgression but…"
"Your highness?" Yuuri nearly screamed, and Victor was so thankful that Lila would be out of the tower by now.
Victor blinked, and his eyes were wide. He reached over to Yuuri's knapsack, which he'd shoved under the wardrobe, and pulled out the crown. "Aren't you a prince?"
Yuuri let out a nervous laugh, and he would have slapped his forehead, but he was still bound up in Victor's hair.
"Are you serious? M-me, a prince? No!"
Victor lowered the hand holding the crown to the ground, and his expression changed to one of pure bewilderment.
But then, much to Yuuri's confusion, his lips widened into a smile, a wide heart-shaped smile that made Yuuri's chest tighten perhaps more than it should have, especially considering this man had just hit him with a frying pan and tied him up minutes previously.
"Wow! Amazing. If that's the case, does that mean that everyone outside the tower is as beautiful as you?" Victor had shifted his position now, and he was leaning forward now, closer to Yuuri, although not too close. There was this strange cautiousness Yuuri sensed from him, as if he were just plain unfamiliar with other people and, Oh… I guess he is.
"What? I'm not-" Yuuri spluttered, and his face turned red, all the way up to his ears. "Victor! That's your name right?" He nodded. "Have you ever seen another person?"
Victor nodded. "I see Miss Lila every day." He tapped his chin. Yuuri opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted. "Now why were you in my tower?"
"I was being chased. I saw your tower and escaped into it," he explained. "And that's just one person."
"Well there's also my dog, Makkachin." Yuuri observed as said dog came padding over, hearing his named called. Makkachin was a cute, fluffy brown poodle that reminded Yuuri of a dog that he'd once had. He felt a smile cross his features, unbidden.
"Really cute," he let out a short laugh, "but not a person. Why did you attack me?"
Victor frowned. "You came into my house! I thought you were a thief."
Yuuri almost couldn't handle the irony of that, so he just bit his lip and hid any reaction inside. "Oh well, I promise I wasn't trying to steal anything from you."
It was honest, at least.
Victor noticed, and Yuuri did as well, that they'd settled into a pattern of switching off asking questions, so he proposed the next one.
"What's your name?"
Yuuri's eyes widened, and god was he cute. Judging by Yuuri's reaction, he didn't seem to agree, but Victor couldn't imagine that, even with his lack of knowledge of the outside world, there were many people lovelier looking than this man.
"S-Sakata no Kintoki."
Victor smiled again, that same, heart shaped smile that Yuuri found really, rather delightful. He couldn't help if the man were attractive, could he? "Wow! Kintaro. I love that story. I've read it so many times." His expression changed to a more thoughtful one. "But… that can't be your name, can it? That's a nickname, right?"
Yuuri froze. "Y-you know that story?"
Victor nodded vigorously.
"But no one around here does. I thought it was safe too… it's popular in my homeland but…" Yuuri was rambling now and he knew it, but he was anxious. Sakata no Kintoki had been a safe choice for him. He'd grown up with stories of the folk hero Kintaro, as everyone in his parents' homeland had, but- here, on his continent, he was a hero that Yuuri had, that he could keep to himself and no one else would know about. A name he could use to protect himself and his identity. 'That's a nickname, right?' Of course it was. Victor, the same man who apparently thought his dog counted as a human and that Yuuri was beautiful, had seen right through that?
Victor leaned forward further now, and for a moment, Yuuri thought he was going to undo his bindings, because oh, he was touching his arm. "I read a lot. Miss Lila brings me books from all over the world, and…" he smiled, a little rueful, if Yuuri was reading it correctly, "stories of magic are my favorite. Are you really from Japan?"
"My parents are…"
"What's your real name?"
Victor's expression was honest, and he sensed no ill will from the man. He… had just been protecting himself, hadn't he? Yuuri's headache argued that hardly mattered, but, well, it was fading, wasn't it?
"Unbind me, and I'll tell you."
Victor stood up, and there was a moment where, Yuuri thought, he saw real fear in his eyes. "I—I-I—" he stuttered, and he gulped. It's not like he had a choice. He'd decided, in the rush of it, to foolishly bind this man by his own hair. He'd have to free him eventually.
The young man had proven to be—not in the least bit frightening, but in this moment, faced with the fact that he was going to be defenseless against him again (save for the frying pan again, which he'd nabbed from beside the wardrobe and held in hand just in case), Victor felt his heart beat speed up rapidly. This time it wasn't due to how lovely the other man was to look at.
He wasn't scared of him.
And it was true, he really wasn't. He was, Victor knew, just—unable to shake the memories, the glimpses of his past, foggy, blurred, the only real, clear thing about them being the emotions associated with them, that came to mind when he thought of being alone with someone who wasn't Lila.
"Victor are you okay?" He sounded genuinely concerned, and Victor thought, that would be hard to fake, wouldn't it?
"Y-yeah, I'm fine." He let out a shaky breath, and his voice, Yuuri noticed, was much lower. "I'll let you go."
"Thanks." And Yuuri smiled. "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you, but to be fair, I think you got more than your fair share of payback for that."
Victor laughed, and it felt good. "I'm sorry about that."
Yuuri's eyes honed in on the frying pan. "Please don't use that again."
"I won't, unless you try to attack me."
"I just want to be out of this hair. Why is it so long anyway?"
"Because I've never cut it," Victor answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He felt relaxed now. He reached down and loosened the ties around Yuuri's feet, then his arms, and he didn't even feel like he needed to let out an exhale of relief when all Yuuri did was stand up and brush himself off.
"Thank you."
"No problem," Victor responded.
"I'm sorry for freaking you out. Can I have my bag?"
Wordlessly, Victor handed him his bag. Yuuri reached inside and pulled out, from a leather case, a pair of blue framed glasses and slipped them onto his face.
"I haven't told anyone my name in a long time," he explained. "It's… there's a lot of reasons why, but please, when I tell you this, you can call me it, but make sure not to mention anything about Sakata no Kintoki okay?"
Victor creased his brows in bewilderment and tapped his chin for a moment, mulling over why exactly he'd say something like this. Did it have something to do with the reason he was being chased?
"Okay, I can do that. So just your real name then? Make sure not to ever mention your nickname," Victor clarified.
He nodded.
"Great! I love the glasses by the way. They're so charming!"
Yuuri's cheeks reddened again. What is with this man? Does he just say whatever comes to mind?
He held out his hand, and Victor looked confused for a moment, before he took it. "Sorry I forgot for a second! I've read about this before, yes."
"Yuuri Katsuki," he said, shaking his hand, "my name is Yuuri Katsuki."
"Yuuri!" Victor repeated, drawing out the u in a way that the other man found far more pleasant than he'd like to admit. "I like that much better anyway."
Yuuri felt himself smile, because he liked the way his name sounded on this man's lips. He hadn't heard his name said by someone else in such a long while, and he felt warmth pool in his chest at the sound of it. He missed it. He missed being Yuuri so much.
"T-thanks," he replied, and even he couldn't miss the way his voice shook at that. He pulled his hand away, and found himself surveying Victor again, or rather… surveying his hair. "Sorry your hair is just so-"
"Yuuri take me outside!" Victor blurted out, and he'd put down the frying pan and stepped closer to him, a sparkle in his bright blue eyes.
"Uh, what?"
"You're right," Victor began, "I don't know any other people. Just Miss Lila, and Makkachin, and you… now." He bit his lip and glanced down at his dog, giving him a stroke. Makkachin licked his fingers. "I want to go outside the tower."
Yuuri found himself, in spite of his own better judgment, taking a step closer to Victor. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his brown eyes flashed sympathy. "You can't leave this tower on your own?"
Victor blew a piece of long hair out of his face and let out a short, sarcastic laugh. "I can't leave the tower period. Miss Lila won't let me."
His eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment and he glanced around the tower again, surveying the paintings once more, the pots, the pans, the barre. It was a beautiful place, but it was almost too lived in. Even the floor was decorated with art, and Yuuri noticed, it was much simpler than the art on the wall, as if Victor painted it when he was far younger. How long had this man been here? "Why?" Yuuri felt his voice break, just a little.
"It's… hard to explain," Victor said, for as much as he liked this Yuuri Katsuki, his hair, his magic hair, was still his secret. "But I want to go. Will you help me?"
"Is there somewhere specific you want go?"
Victor nodded vigorously, gesturing over to a painting on the far wall, above his bed. It was, Yuuri saw, of Victor himself sitting on a hill watching a full moon. Rising up toward the moon were thousands of lights, and Yuuri knew immediately what they were. It was that time of year after all.
"You just want to go to the kingdom to see the lanterns?" he asked.
"Just?" Victor looked aghast. "It's been my dream for most of my life. They appear every year on my birthday, and Yuuri…" he smiled as he looked at the painting, but it wasn't one of his wide smiles; it was small, thoughtful, and pensive, "I've always thought they were meant for me."
Yuuri chuckled. "Well not unless you're the lost prince of Corona," he mumbled. "Although…"
There wasn't much in the way of physical descriptions of the lost prince, but he was said to have light hair and light eyes, and his name was-
No, that was impossible. Victor was a common name. Yuuri shook it off. The prince was long gone. It had been almost twenty-three years since he'd vanished.
"Although?"
Yuuri shook his head. "It's nothing." He bit his lip and toyed with his hands, picking at his fingernails, just a bit. "So uh, if I take you to the kingdom, what will 'Miss Lila' do?"
"She's my mom, or well… she raised me," Victor explained, "and she wouldn't hurt you unless you tried to hurt me."
Yuuri raised his eyes to meet Victor's, and he felt his breath catch. They were brown, he'd noted, and a lovely almost red brown at that. They seemed to sparkle when he was in thought, or perhaps Victor was imagining that. Maybe it was just the glare of his glasses. "I wasn't worried about myself, Victor."
Oh no, it really was his eyes, wasn't it? Victor filed that away.
"Yuuri…"
He gulped.
"Miss Lila would never hurt me; I swear to it."
Yuuri nodded. "All right. I need to go into the city anyway, but don't forget what I told you about my name. You can't forget that."
Victor nodded, bright and buoyant, and Yuuri found himself, before he could even think to say anything, captured in the taller man's embrace. He held his arms out stiff to his side, his heart beating in his ears. "Yuuri, thank you so much!" And at this point, Victor nuzzled his shoulder and Yuuri thought that his blush, which he knew was there, must have been brighter than it had ever been.
"V-Victor!" Hesitantly, he patted him on the back and squeezed out of the hug. "Get yourself ready, okay?" he commanded, for lack of a better thing to say.
Yuuri for his part, had to make himself unrecognizable. It wasn't hard. He'd done it before, any time he needed to go into a city or a town and not be caught. His normal self, Yuuri Katsuki, lacked the confident aesthetic, of Sakata no Kintoki, and he blended into the background well. Victor sure as hell wouldn't, with that hair, but Yuuri at least, could.
I'll take him to the kingdom and then later on, do the exchange for the crown. It's not like I didn't need to go into Corona anyway…
Victor was excitedly bouncing around the tower, babbling to Makkachin about who knows what and seemingly deciding whether to bring his frying pan or not. Yuuri let him be and looked into the mirror on the back of the wardrobe.
He reached into his knapsack and grabbed a drinking skin, which he'd filled with water at the nearby spring, then squirted a little into his hand and wet his hair slightly. The hair product came out, and he combed his messy bangs down, doing the same to the sides of his hair until he looked much more Yuuri and less Sakata no Kintoki. He'd been told, with his hair back and his glasses off, that he almost looked like a different person. He used this to his advantage.
One more thing, just in case, that he always did. He unlaced his doublet and turned it inside out. The other side of it was a deep green. It wasn't a big change, but, he thought, every little bit helped.
He laced it back up and turned to Victor. "Are you ready now?"
Victor turned around, and his smile grew large. "Yes! And thank you. I bet your hair is so much softer now."
Yuuri blinked, blinked again, and then just shook his head in befuddlement. He reached up and ran his fingers through his hair, which was indeed, softer now, but… had Victor touched it before? When he was unconscious? His cheeks pinked at the thought.
"You are so strange."
Strange was an understatement, for Victor- whatever his last name was. He realized he had no idea. He'd ask him later.
"Makkachin is coming too," Victor said, and his tone left no room for argument. "I can't exactly leave him since Miss Lila is going to be gone a couple of days."
Yuuri glanced to the poodle, who stood stalwartly by Victor's side, and shrugged. "Sure thing. Now can we just go out the door or?"
"No, we'll have to go down through the window."
Yuuri slid the knapsack further onto his shoulder and frowned. He noticed that Victor had decided to grab the frying pan after all. "How do you propose climbing down with a giant dog in your arms?"
Victor grinned and held up, in his arms, an enormous bundle of his silver hair.
"You have got to be kidding me," Yuuri groaned.
But the hair worked more than adequately. The stuff was strong, as he was aware of due to the fact that he'd been tied up in it. It was just- the strangeness of the situation that had Yuuri a little shaken.
He was on the ground now below the tower, soft meadow grass beneath his feet and Makkachin by his side. He'd volunteered to take Victor's dog down with him since he had a lot more experience doing—well, anything to be honest, and Victor had agreed. Luckily for him, Makkachin had taken to Yuuri instantly and covered his face in the most slobbery of kisses.
"Victor, are you coming down now?"
He could see Victor at the top of the tower, one leg over the edge. Yuuri noticed he still had the ballet shoes on, and he wondered if the man even had other shoes. He lived in a tower after all. Would he even need them?
"Y-yeah I'm coming!" Victor exclaimed, but even from the grass below, Yuuri could hear the shake in his voice.
"It's okay. It's not too scary, I promise," Yuuri reassured. "You'll be on the ground in just a few seconds. It's an easy jump to make."
"I know!"
Ah, it wasn't the leap itself that Victor was worried about, was it?
Yuuri took a deep breath and exhaled, trying not to allow Victor's own anxiety over the situation rub off on himself. "Look Victor. I don't know why you've been kept inside all this time, but- I promise it's not so bad out here. I'll take you to see the lanterns, and if you don't like it, I'll bring you right back, okay?"
He let out a short, nervous laugh. "Thank you, Yuuri Katsuki."
"You're welcome. Now Makkachin is waiting for you down here, isn't he?"
Victor nodded and tightened the frying pan in his hand, closing his eyes and breathing in and out several times. Miss Lila, I'm sorry, but I need to do this. I know you think I'm going to be hurt, and maybe I will be but…
"Catch me if I fall, Yuuri," Victor yelled, and he leapt down, grabbing his hair and using it as a rope as it swung over the small outcropping they'd hung it around.
Yuuri, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping open rather like a fish, spread his arms, as if expecting Victor to land in them.
He didn't, instead delicately touching down to the grass next to him. Yuuri heaved a sigh of relief.
And Victor fell to his knees, his silver hair falling around him like a glowing halo that encircled his entire body. In the sunlight, beaming into the meadow and surrounded by the green of the grass and trees and the blue of the sky, Victor wasn't just pretty or attractive.
Victor was gorgeous.
Then Yuuri watched Victor as he stood up, watched him as he ran through the meadow, rolled in the grass and smelled the flowers, because this was all new to him, and it was all so very exciting.
"Yuuri this is amazing!" he laughed, joyous and vivacious, and he was brighter than sunshine, and Yuuri wanted so much to be pulled into his light. He was holding a small bundle of dandelions, and he knew Victor was well read, so perhaps he already knew they were weeds and not flowers and didn't care, just because he was touching the soil and pulling them from the ground himself.
"Dandelions, Victor?"
"Mhmm!" Victor responded as Yuuri approached him, and he knew he was smiling as well.
"On the way to Corona, I can show you so many prettier flowers."
Victor's grin grew even wider. "Great!" He closed the distance between himself and Yuuri and ever so gently, brushed his fingers across Yuuri's cheek as he placed one of the dandelions behind his ear, bright yellow contrasting vividly with the black of his hair. "Perfect. That's perfect."
His smile was in the shape of a heart again, and Yuuri's own heart was lodged in his throat, to the point that all he could do was nod and hope that the flush on his cheeks wasn't too ridiculous.
The headache from Victor's frying pan was entirely gone now, or at the very least, if it wasn't, he was far too distracted with other things to notice it now.
